It takes a city editor to make a paper

One of the toughest things about being the editor of the Daily Pilot

is that this newspaper is often the training ground for young

journalists who go from here to bigger, though not always better,

things.

We’ve sent reporters and editors to the Los Angeles Times, the San

Jose Mercury News, the St. Petersburg Times and the Seattle Times, to

name just a few.

This summer, we’ve lost a slew of young talent. Our education

reporter Christine Carrillo left us to go to work in public

relations. Our business/politics reporter Paul Clinton has taken a

job at the Daily Breeze in Torrance, as has Sean Hiller, our former

ace photographer. Our news assistant Coral Wilson left to work on a

Web site.

This week we took another hit. James Meier, our city editor and

onetime Forum page editor, has taken a job at the San Bernardino Sun

as an assistant metro editor.

Before he left, I asked James, who has done the Sunday Q&A; feature

for the better part of two years, to agree to a Q&A; about himself and

share some of his Pilot memories with the readers. Here goes:

What was your most favorite part of being Pilot city editor?

When I became an editor at the Pilot, I knew I’d read a lot of

stories. What I didn’t really think about at the time was

coordinating with all of the other departments -- the photo, sports,

design and copy staffs. As a city editor, you’re the maestro, if you

will, of the entire newsroom and you’re conducting beautiful music

with a full orchestra. It’s a great feeling when everything falls

into place. There are times, of course, when I’ve questioned whether

there would be paper. With vacations and sick days taking out half of

the six-reporter staff on certain days in my two-and-a-half years

there have trying days. But everything works out. How? It’s a

mystery. But I’ve enjoyed working with everyone from yourself on down

to the interns, who often work really hard to ensure a great Pilot

every day.

What was your least favorite?

Those aforementioned days when there were few reporters and plenty

of room for articles. But I constantly learned that lesson: It’ll all

work out. Another least favorite part of the job was finding a

front-page photo when not much was going on in Newport-Mesa and the

photographers were really busy with sports and other assignments.

Those were rarely fun days. But, again, it all seemed to work out.

Tell me what have you learned the most as city editor.

Boy, where to start? I learned most of what I know as an editor

here at the Pilot. Obviously, I can’t stress enough that I learned

that it all works out. I’m sure the readers are getting sick of

reading about that. But sitting on this side of the newspaper, you’ve

really got to wonder sometimes. As a reader, I’m sure it can be

difficult to fathom all that goes into putting out this daily

miracle. But I know the readers appreciate it and that makes it even

more worthwhile. That reminds of one of my other favorite parts of

being a city editor: feedback. Obviously the positive feedback felt

better, but quite often, you get the negative feedback. That’s fine

and you end up learning a lot of lessons from it. And, of course, you

find out about mistakes that you didn’t know were made. But you learn

from them. But I did and do appreciate all of the feedback. What I

liked mostly about the positive feedback were those people who went

out of their way to give it. The Pilot has some No. 1 fans, if you

will, who call in and compliment us. And that’s a precious and

much-appreciated. Thanks to those [people].

What was the biggest story you worked on?

There have been several issues in Newport-Mesa that have been more

interesting to work on than others, but one of the biggest groups of

stories was that on Sept. 11, 2001. That was a day when all other

issues were thrown out the window and the focus became, “What does it

all mean in Newport-Mesa?” What was so weird about that day, looking

back on it, was the fact that we weren’t able to take it all in like

those who probably ended up staying home and watching it on TV all

day. After less than an hour of watching it on TV that morning, each

of us rushed into work, brainstormed and came up with local stories.

So that group of stories stands out as biggest to me. Obviously,

there were quite a few somewhat large stories in the form of the Home

Ranch issue, the Westside and the Mormon temple that also come to

mind.

Are you going to miss the Newport-Mesa community?

Definitely. I’m going to work for the San Bernardino Sun. If you

think about that, you’ll realize that it’s missing the ocean. That’s

a key ingredient to loving to drive around Newport-Mesa. But in

addition to the great location, I’ll miss many of the people who I’ve

met and gotten to know in my duration here. It’s a great community

and “The O.C.” producers need to stop on by at some point and really

meet some of the great people here.

What are the duties of your new job?

Well, I’ll be the deputy metro editor at the Sun, so the metro

editor and I will basically work with many reporters -- just like I

did at the Pilot -- on their stories and projects and work with all

of the editors in planning the next day’s paper. I’m sure there are

many other duties that I’ll learn about once I get there.

What advice do you have for us or the readers?

For everyone at the Pilot, my advice is to learn the most valuable

lesson of them all: It’ll all work out. For the reporters, my advice

is to ignore that previous sentence and to write enough stories so

that it does work out. In a way, I’m serious, of course, but that’s

also somewhat of a joke. For the readers, my only advice is to keep

reading because the Daily Pilot is a special paper that really caters

to a very specific population. You don’t see that happen with very

many papers. The Pilot has something very special going on that is

very difficult to replicate, so those who can should enjoy it and

appreciate all of the hard work and thought that goes into it each

day. I’m certainly going to miss it, but you can bet I’m going to

keep the Daily Pilot as one of my favorite Web sites. So keep up the

good work and take care.

*

I normally wouldn’t do this, but, last week I was writing about

our error policy.

And somewhere between the writing process and the time it got on

the page, in a horribly ironic twist, someone got a hold of my story

and inserted a paragraph into my column that contained a misspelling

of the word rapport.

I’m not going to say who the person was because that person knows

how I feel already and subsequently felt the sting of the

aforementioned error policy.

Still, since I had a number of readers call or e-mail me about the

misspelling, I really wanted to clear my name and tell them I didn’t

make the error.